1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical support system for supporting medical treatments to be put on a patient located in a distant place by a medical treater or conductor, and particularly to an at-home medical treatment support system wherein image information and voice information are transferred between medical treaters placed in distant positions or between a medical treater and a patient through a communication media such as a communication network, a medical support vehicle capable of satellite communications, or the like to thereby allow medical treatments while better mutual understanding is being established between the patient and the medical treater.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Attention has recently been focused on a medical support system for connecting between a patient's home and a distant hospital at which a medical conductor or treater such as a doctor or the like is permanently stationed, through a communication media such as a communication network, satellite communications or the like to perform image communications, thereby allowing the doctor to diagnose a disease of a patient located in a distant place and make his/her health consultation or the like. There have been proposed, for example, a medical image information transmission system disclosed in JP-A No. 2-218336, a remote-medical system disclosed in JP-A No. 9-75404, a medical support system using satellite communication functions, disclosed in JP-A No. 8-215158, etc.
In such conventionally-proposed medical support systems, a male or female nurse calls at patient homes with a portable television conference unit capable of making a loop type multipoint conference and a portable medical device unit and transmits, in real time, medical data about a plurality of patients located in distant places, using a satellite communication network and a ground communication network via a traveling medical support vehicle capable of satellite communications. On the other hand, a medical conductor or treater in a distant hospital analyzes the received data and examines a patient while speaking with a medical treater and the patient located in a distant place through bidirectional communications using images and voices. The patient medical data is transmitted to a plurality of medical treaters located in distant places and the medical treaters in the remote locations examine the patient while bidirectionally speaking or interacting with the patient through images and voices using television conference functions. As a result, the plurality of medical treaters in different locations can examine one patient simultaneously.
Further, a patient monitor system disclosed in JP-A No. 4-327832 performs a two-way communication using physiological data and patient video images and voices through a communication network. The hospital side has the function of receiving the combined video images and physiological data together and displaying them on a display, and reproducing the voices and transmitting voice data to the patient side and is thereby capable of examining a patient in a remote location.
Moreover, a pathology remote image diagnostic system disclosed in JP-A No. 9-117417 has also the same function as described above. A pathological specialist located away from a hospital and the hospital are connected to one another through a communication network so that tissue images under a microscope are transferred to the pathological specialist side. Thereafter, the pathological specialist performs pathological examinations and diagnostics, based on the tissue images displayed on a terminal provided on the pathological specialist side and immediately transfers the result of diagnosis thereof to the hospital side.
However, problems exist which are not capable of being solved by the conventionally-proposed arts. Since the patient and the medical treater do not directly look at each other under the construction of the prior art, how to transmit clear and accurate patient motion pictures to the medical treater side grows in importance. In the prior arts, a method of capturing patient motion pictures by a single video camera is commonly used. However, since it is necessary to shorten the distance between the patient and the video camera when one attempts to display images high in accuracy, a problem arises in that an image corresponding to the whole body of the patient cannot be captured. If one attempts to shoot or photograph the image of the whole body of the patient when one video camera for photographing the images of the patient is used, it is then necessary to increase the distance between the video camera and the patient. Therefore, a problem arises in that image resolution is scaled down. When only such an image scaled down in resolution or an image narrow in visual field is transmitted, this will result in the transmission of only information much less than practical, thus causing a problem for medical examination and care.